Communication

In the News

This is a transcript of the NBC Program BUCHANAN AND PRESS, Monday, November 3, 2003.

BUCHANAN: Welcome back. In a grand ceremony Sunday, the Episcopal Church consecrated its first openly homosexual bishop, Gene Robinson. But, will the church’s historic decision called a schism among Episcopalians? Joining us is the Reverend Canon David Anderson, president of the American Anglican Council and Elizabeth Kaeton, director at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in New Jersey who performs same-sex blessings.

Reverend Kaeton, I want to ask you, the-Canon Robinson, or now Bishop Robinson, I guess up in New Hampshire, he was married. He left his wife. He left his two little girls. He went to live with a homosexual. So doing, he basically defied what he had been ordained to preach and practice and he contradicted biblical teachings that have endured for 400 years. Isn’t it a mockery to make him a bishop?

REV. ELIZABETH KAETON, ST. PAUL’S CHURCH RECTOR: Oh absolutely not. I think, first of all, you have the sequence of events wrong. It’s really wrong to say that Gene left his wife and his children for another man. In fact, he had been divorced for a significant amount of time before he met and became partnered with Mark, his partner of 13 years. So, it had been a significant amount of time. I think our ordination vows cause us to be faithful ministers of the gospel, and I don’t see one shred of evidence that Gene Robinson has not been faithful to his ordination vows or to the gospel. He’s being honest.

PRESS: Reverend Anderson, let me ask you a basic question I don’t understand. I mean, I was raised a Catholic, not an Anglican, but taught as I think all Anglicans were, that God loves all of his children. If that is true...

REV. DAVID ANDERSON, AMER. ANGLICAN COUNCIL PRES.: Sure.

PRESS: ... doesn’t he love all of his children equally and why are you saying that some of his children, because they happen to be gay, don’t deserve equal treatment?

ANDERSON: Well, he loves all of his creation, all of his children, but that doesn’t mean that all of us as loved children don’t do things that are grievous to him, disturbing to him and that we need to repent of and to change.

PRESS: Well, I-but, equal treatment. You’re saying, it seems to me from what I’ve read, that this man should not be permitted higher orders simply because he is gay.

ANDERSON: It’s because his lifestyle, which includes sexual contact with both somebody he is not married to, someone of the same gender, causes that to be a state of sin, which is a moral problem as far as the historic church is concerned, even if the Episcopal Church today doesn’t see it that way.

BUCHANAN: All right, Reverend Kaeton, I want to bring you in right on that point. For some 400 years the Catholic Church still teaches it, but some 400 years the Episcopal Church taught that homosexual relations were immoral, unnatural, and sinful. Now, was the Episcopal Church wrong then, or is the Episcopal Church wrong now in saying the bishop who is living with his partner, as you call it, the bishop is certainly-can be consecrated a bishop while doing that? Was it wrong then or wrong now?

KAETON: No. The church has been wrong about a number of things. It was wrong about left-handed people being sinister and sick. It was wrong about people with epilepsy being possessed by demons. It was wrong about women-when they took a vote about whether or not women were human, I understand...

BUCHANAN: All right.

KAETON: It’s been wrong about a lot of things...

BUCHANAN: So you believe that homosexual-I mean, homosexual relations between two committed adults, whether man or woman, is a perfectly moral and legitimate lifestyle, I mean according to scripture and according to what you believe the church ought to teach?

KAETON: Absolutely. If people are keeping the rules of scripture, are following the principles of scripture, of course, they’re living faithful, godly lives, and I think that God is revealed in the midst of that relationship.

PRESS: Reverend Anderson, if being gay and having sex between two gay people was such a horrific sin, why didn’t Jesus Christ say something about it?

ANDERSON: Well, Jesus didn’t say things about a lot of different areas. He didn’t say anything about abortion.

PRESS: But you’re saying this is...

(CROSSTALK)

PRESS: ... big enough that you would split the church over it. I mean, this is like big deal to you. Why didn’t Jesus ever condemn it?

ANDERSON: I don’t think it ever came up. I-the presumption among Orthodox Jews was that you simply don’t do that.

BUCHANAN: All right, Reverend Kaeton, do you believe this will split the Episcopal Church? Do you believe the conservatives are traditionalists, feel this is a matter of such gravity in moment that it legitimately should split the Episcopal Church? That’s going to happen?

KAETON: I think that some people will leave, just as some people left over the ordination of women, but I do not believe that it will split the church. I think the church is much stronger than that, and I don’t think this issue is strong enough to split the church. I think we love the church much too much for it to split over this.

BUCHANAN: Reverend...

KAETON: Unfortunately, some people will leave. That’s not to split the church.

BUCHANAN: Reverend Anderson.

ANDERSON: Well, how many people need to leave before it’s a split?

PRESS: I don’t know. You know, Reverend Anderson, there’s a church here in Washington called All Souls, which has a gay pastor, an Anglican church. It’s the fastest growing church in the diocese of Washington D.C. Don’t you think maybe you’re going down the wrong track and that this is a way to open up the church to bring in more people?

ANDERSON: I don’t think so. If you keep lowering the standards to a certain point, you can, I guess, get everyone in, but scripture talks about the way to salvation being narrow, not being broad and wide.

BUCHANAN: Well, how do you answer, Reverend Kaeton?

ANDERSON: Well, I think the Episcopal Church is going to split, but I don’t know how many people have to leave in order for her to be willing to call it a split. There’s going to be a sizable number of people who leave.

KAETON: Actually...

(CROSSTALK)

KAETON: ... I think there’s going to be fewer people who leave the church than there are gay and lesbian people in the church.

PRESS: And we’re going to have to leave the topic right where it is.

BUCHANAN: Thank you very much.

PRESS: ... thank you both very, very much for joining us.

KAETON: Thank you.